I won't claim to have followed the media nor discussions on this site about HPV, oral sex and oral cancer very closely, but I gather that there have been some media items about a possible relationship?

I refer to this article by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, which expresses his take on the state of what is known about the possible relationships between HPV and cancers with a good description of "cofactors". I think it should be okay to post this link, as Mirkin isn't really selling anything, that I'm aware of:

http://drpinna.com/dr-mirkin-and-skin-cancers-19327
****while dr mirkin is not selling anything, dr pinna certainly is. the link in this post takes you to pinna's website not mirkin's and if you look at products, pinna is going to be selling magic mushrooms****(added by OCF admin)

It is clear that current evidence does point to a causative relationship between sexual promiscuity and the rates of certain cancers (cervical being the most discussed).

However, I will suggest (my opinion) that it will turn out that we as human beings are basically bathing in germs and viruses every day, and perhaps more and more so as the world becomes more crowded, and while it seems likely that certain viruses are a contributing factor to cancer, it will turn out that it requires a combination of cofactors to in fact trigger most cancers.

HPV alone seems to not cause cancer in the vast majority of people who become infected. As Dr. Mirkin states, most HPV goes away on its own within 6 months to two years.

However, chronic HPV infection (perhaps some people can't resolve the infection for whatever reason), repeated exposure to HPV, or HPV in combination with other cofactors such as smoking, being overweight, poor diet, lack of exercise, poor Vitamin D status, or genetic predisposition, may be what it takes to trigger cancer.

Perhaps HPV prevalence in the general population is a new thing, but I will suggest that any notion that you can avoid it may be misguided.

While Mirkin does state that most HPV infection is from sex, he also states that, technically, you could get HPV from a handshake. Also, some of the forms of HPV are what causes warts, and how many of us had warts as kids long before sexual activity began? I did, and I can guarantee I didn't get them from sex!

So what's my point? I feel that any attempt to stigmatize oral cancer as a sexually transmitted condition (or to stigmatize oral sex as particularly risky, for that matter) is misguided and unhelpful, that it will turn out that we're all under attack by thousands of viruses and germs at any given time simply by way of living on the planet among other people (and usually our bodies take care of this), that it takes a combination of cofactors to trigger cancer, and that simply living a healthy lifestyle will turn out to be the best defence against cancer.

Thoughts?